Thursday Thoughts 039: Eddie Thoneick

Hey Eddie, welcome to Dance Rebels, how are you? First off, how long have you been a DJ/producer for? And what inspired you to pursue your career as a musician?

First of all: Thanks for having me. I´ve been Djing since early 1991 when I was 13 years old and had my first shows at the tender age of 14. Since I´ve always been playing instruments like Piano, Bass, Guitar and Drums it didn´t take long that I wanted to start creating my own tracks. I´ve started producing when I was 16 years old on an old Atari ST, Cubase, an Akai sampler and a Keyboard. Back then everything came out of my sampler and the Synth I had. There were no digital Audio Plug Ins back then and everything was routed to external sources…Not a cheap hobby at that time.

Throughout your career, you’ve worked with respected artists including Erick Morillo, Kryder and Abel Ramos, so, what’s the best advice you’ve received from any artist you’ve worked with?

Ever since I started making music Erick Morillo was one of my idols and he was one of these Djs that made me fall in love with House Music. I´ve known him longer than anyone in the DJ business and since we started working together in 2009 he always told me: “stick to what you love, keep going and it will turn out extraordinary”. That´s something I´ve always kept in mind.  Nowadays it´s really rare being surrounded by people that are honest and wanting the best for you without getting an advantage for themselves. Erick, Kryder and Tom Staar are some of these people. We see the bigger picture here, as we all want each other to succeed. We see the bigger picture as we want the scene to evolve. And that only works if people stand together in order to create something great.

I personally feel a lot of people think it’s easy to become a DJ/producer, unfortunately, so, to enable you to achieve the career success you’ve had, what sacrifices did you have to make on the way? How much time per day do you devote to music too? 

People who don´t know the business just see a DJ releasing a track and getting worldwide fame. They just see the tip of the iceberg. I´m not talking about the DJs that have a 360°-production team around them. The DJs that don´t even have the slightest clue of how to switch on a studio and have people making music for them without the artist being in the studio. I´m talking about hard working musicians. DJs that really produce on their own. Putting all their heart into creating new music. Some are musically educated, some are not. But they are there. In the process. Living and breathing what they do. Nowadays it´s gotten so much harder to stand out then back then. You have to be at the pulse of time and evolve as an artist, make sacrifices, let go of old things, start fresh, over and over again. Especially if you have been in the scene for a long time it happens that people put you into an “old-school-box”. So it´s crucial to reinvent yourself.  And it´s not just the DJing on the weekends and the producing during the week. No, you also need to take care of collaborations, contracts, marketing/PR plans etc and you need to be in constant contact with your management and booking agency. It easily turns into a 24/7 work machine.

On the 19^th of May you’re returning to Steve Angello’s ‘SIZE Records’, to release your third track on the label (previous releases include ‘Love Will Never Let You Down’ and ‘Celsius’), and it’s entitled ‘Heart’! How easy has it been working with the label, and how highly do you rate the label in general too?

Steve and his team have been doing this for a long time and they know how everything works best. They bring a lot of experience to the table which makes the workflow amazing. Size always delivers amazing music and Steve has that feeling for unique records and artist. If it´s young talents or well-known artists, the releases are always stand out. There are just a handful of labels I admire and Size is at the top of the list!

In your own words, describe ‘Heart’ as a track; what do you think makes the track special? And what was the hardest section of the track to produce?

Honestly, `Heart´ was done within one day. I sent it to Steve and he loved it from the start. The flow was right there. Sometimes it´s just putting the pieces together. I wanted to create something that has an old school 90´s house touch to it which I did with the Appregiator Chords and the vocoded Vocals in the break, wanted to add a touch of my tribal vibe and shuffle it up in order to really get it rolling.

When you listen to ‘Heart’, you can tell a lot of time and effort has been put into the track, including the mix, the bassline etc, so, how many versions of the track did you make, before you came to a decision it was finished? Do you prefer to use analogue equipment, or is it all done via DAW?

There have been 5 Versions. One of the fastest produced tracks I´ve done. Wanted to keep the layer amount to a minimum. I´ve used a lot of analogue stuff back then, but now it all is done in the box.

Apart from the ‘Heart’ release, what other releases do you have planned? There are still a couple of unreleased tracks from your Sosumi 2016 Miami set yet to see the light of day, so, what’s planned for your summer?

There´s a lot in the Pipeline.  Working on new solo tracks and some collabs with for example Tom Staar  and Funkerman. Also a couple of secret projects ;)

Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to the young and upcoming DJ/producers, what would it be?

You always pass failure on your way to success.

For More Information On Eddie Thoneick, See the Following:
https://facebook.com/eddiethoneick/
https://soundcloud.com/eddiethoneick
https://twitter.com/eddiethoneick